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You are here: Home / Archives for WingSpace

WingSpace

Entrepreneur Creating Wing Space for New Endeavor

January 4, 2022 By quadcities Leave a Comment

Former WingSpace owner planning tours, workshops, products at Fruition Farmstead.

The contrast between creating an office-sharing concept campus in downtown Prescott and establishing a micro-farm in Chino Valley may seem dramatic to the casual observer, but for Melanie Banayat and Greg Fine, the common thread is community.

“Greg and I believe that community is incredibly valuable and important in the whole scheme of life, and especially during tense times like these, community is a lifesaver,” Banayat said. “Since the two of us are capable individuals who both love growing food, we really liked the idea of spending our time bringing people together in an agricultural venue that is functional on many levels.”

For more than three years, Banayat has operated WingSpace, “an entrepreneurial ecosystem” offering furnished, amenity-rich workspace to freelancers, small businesses, entrepreneurs, non-profits and remote workers supporting one another.

Now, she joins husband Fine as co-owner, co-grower and co-community builder of   Fruition Farmstead in Chino Valley. The couple envisions their 2.5-acre micro-farm as a small yet sustainable enterprise to “grow and make things” with their own hands, while ultimately involving the public in small-scale, in-person farmstead experiences.

“Our vision includes tours where people can pick their own fresh food, herbs and flowers straight from the garden on specific days and times of the week,” Banayat explained. “We’ll host small-scale how-to classes for adults and students and small farm-to-table date nights. We’ll have some farm animals and also offer ways for people to participate in growing food and learning right along with us. The emphasis is all about bringing people together.”

After the pair purchased the Chino Valley property in early 2021, Banayat realized she could not effectively divide her time between the two businesses. An ownership transfer of WingSpace to Heidi Lekan closes this month (January 2022). (Watch for more about Lekan in the February QCBN.)

“Even micro-farms require a lot of time, and it is hard, physical work, so I needed to make a decision,” Banayat shared. “I knew I would need to pass the baton of ownership to someone else to take over WingSpace and hopefully make it even better.”

The pressing goal for the couple is construction of a two-story, multi-use barn containing an art studio for Banayat, workshop for Fine, event space, and a short-term one-bedroom vacation rental. With the current stressed construction industry and supply chain issues, they estimate it will take at least six months to obtain the required building permits. Banayat will general contract with the help of an experienced construction consultant, while Fine will function as job site superintendent.

She noted that “starting WingSpace from the ground up taught me a lot about the value of relationships and finding people who believe in your vision. I learned to listen to what is important to others and how important it is to pull people together to plan and problem-solve with you. I also learned that I had to step into a leadership role, even though I never viewed myself as a leader.”

“When you want something bad enough, you’re willing to take on roles that you never imagined you would,” she said. “This barn is a key aspect to this farmstead, so we’re in for some pretty big learning curves. We’ll be putting more trust in God to guide us and connect us with the right people who can help.”

Fine anticipates transitioning from his house painting business once the barn is completed. He retired in 1998 as a captain with the Prescott Fire Department after 20 years of service locally and eight prior years of firefighting in California. A Vietnam veteran, he also taught fire science at Yavapai College, volunteered for 10 years with the Prescott Frontier Days rodeo, and served three years as president of the Prescott High School Booster Club.

He describes the micro-farm as “a long-held dream, which I’m excited to live with someone who is as enthused as I.”

Banayat explained that Fine’s micro-farming experience consists of large gardens, chickens, goats, pigs, a cow and horses. She herself has gardened for the past 10 years and “absolutely loved living one season on a small 10-acre farm with a dozen pregnant cows.”

The farmstead site sits on a hill near Reed Road and Center Street, housing a single-wide manufactured home with a large covered porch and mountain views from Granite Mountain to the San Francisco Peaks.

“I love our home,” she said. “I call her our ugly duckling on a hill, because someday she will become a nice looking swan. The property had everything on our checklist and the land itself is pretty much a blank canvas, which will allow us to implement permaculture principles as we develop the farmstead. We want to arrange gardens and trees and buildings in accordance with the lay of the land to create a flourishing natural ecosystem.”

Having a studio in which to create art is one of the things Banayat said she most looks forward to.

“The focus of my art has always been about rising from the ashes and healing challenging relationships. Our country has become so divided and so many relationships are broken, oftentimes due to misunderstandings. I will be developing a new greeting card line that addresses some of these harder issues in such a way that helps break down the walls of misunderstandings. Using beautiful, artful imagery to convey a message along with poignant prose can be a very powerful way to reach into people’s hardened hearts.”

Her branded Miligirl Collection will include print-on-demand art prints, notecards, journals and possibly clothing or home décor, she said. She also plans to formulate skin care products from herbs and flowers grown on the farmstead.

The duo is documenting the venture’s progress via their Fruition Farmstead YouTube and Rumble.com channels. Their mailing list offers the public information about future events and ways to assist the venture. For more information, visit FruitionFarmstead.com. QCBN

By Sue Marceau, QCBN

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: Fruition Farmstead, Greg Fine, Melanie Banayat, Prescott Frontier Days rodeo, WingSpace

Going It Alone Together

June 30, 2019 By quadcities Leave a Comment

Artist and entrepreneur Melanie Banayat has emerged victorious time and again as unforeseen challenges disrupted her world and forced new beginnings on the canvas of her life.

Loss of family, scuttled dreams, depression and debilitating physical pain have left their mark, but her buoyancy has encouraged others fighting fear, isolation, loss, loneliness and pain.   

Banayat’s award-winning book, Stretch Your Brave, Hack Your Story, Break Through Chronic Disease with Storytelling, documents her journey with sudden-onset rheumatoid arthritis and inspires forging ahead despite despair.

Writing the book became an impetus to founding WingSpace Coworking, a collaborative professional environment for entrepreneurs. From mastering work/life balance to commanding fear of the unknown, Banayat readily shares her capacity for drawing hope and light.

“Fear doesn’t like anything exciting, new or resembling potential,” she advised. “Fear loves boring and predictable. It likes the way things have been done before. Fear says, ‘Don’t ever change.’ But since life is ever-changing, I like giving it direction.”

Banayat urges fellow professionals to field their own curve balls.

“This modern world in which we live is like walking through a minefield of triggers and distractions that knock us off course at the slightest move,” she said. “So, it’s important to develop awareness of how everything is interconnected and how we impact one another.

“WingSpace Coworking is for people who want to be part of a community of like-minded individuals. We’re a mix of freelancers, small business owners, micro-business owners, remote workers, thinkers, doers and idea makers. We are the misfits of the workforce who finally have a place to call our own in the Prescott area. And there is plenty of room for more.” 
The location offers private offices or open space where members and guests can use a desk, conduct business, attend workshops, teach seminars, reserve conference rooms, book events and mingle.

“We may have to work, but we don’t have to work alone,” Banayat contended. “We spend many hours of our life devoted to bringing home a paycheck, so we may as well set ourselves up to enjoy it as much as we can to keep our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health in good shape.”

Starting her own career as a freelance artist after studying graphic design and fine art in the mid-1980s, Banayat established a successful business.

A dozen years later, she sold the company and entered resort management with her husband. The couple bought a lake resort in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, which presented “a rare opportunity to dive into a lifestyle” she anticipated as ideal for raising her children.

“I laugh at myself for that decision because I didn’t even know how to fish, let alone sell fishing tackle,” she chuckled, drawing comparisons to actress Ava Gabor’s city slicker socialite moving to a pig farm in the 1970s TV comedy Green Acres.

“It was hard work and an incredibly beautiful life that I would never trade,” she said. “I jokingly tell my kids that I raised them like Mowgli [the Rudyard Kipling character raised in the jungle by wolves]: out in nature, covered in dirt, where every day was an adventure.”

Later divorced, Banayat became a full-time artist, convincing high end galleries to carry her art. Soon, she “met a man, fell in love, and all was humming along fine until the economic downturn in 2008,” when stress-triggered rheumatoid arthritis toppled her dreams.

“I was no longer able to paint because the joints in my hands, arms and feet were swollen, painful, and I could no longer hold my tools,” she explained. “My fine art career came to sudden halt. I felt blindsided.”

Determined to fight the disease without medication, Banayat completed an 18-month holistic health coach certification, reversed her symptoms, and embraced another career.

“The health coach training really changed my whole perspective on life and work,” she said. “I learned how impactful stress is on humans and how it manifests in us in a multitude of ways mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. That whole experience led me to want to use my skill sets to help others, so I started a private practice out of my home working with clients one on one.”

Banayat “realized how isolated and lonely I felt working by myself every single day. I began looking for ways to collaborate with others because I just knew in my gut that others were experiencing similar problems working from home.”

Thus began the idea for WingSpace: “I have never regretted honoring my intuition or taking the road less traveled, but I take only calculated risks, looking at all sides of a venture to see if it matches up with my values, goals and the lifestyle I want. As long as I can maintain a sense of curiosity, creativity and elements of quirky fun in whatever I do, any hard work is worth doing.”

She derives great joy from “playing matchmaker” between someone who is working on a project and needs help with a logo, branding or coding a website. “I say, ‘Hey, there are a few members here that can help you with those things, let me introduce you.’ I want my members to feel like they are part of a community that cares about them, their work and their life beyond work.” QCBN

By Sue Marceau, QCBN

Filed Under: Business, Community Profile Tagged With: Melanie Banayat, WingSpace, Women In Business

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